On Moonless Nights
by Katerina13
Summary: *PSYCHE AND CUPID AU* What if Psyche never tried to discover who Cupid was? What if he could only come to her on nights with no moon? What if they had many children who could never truly know their father? And what if someone is now looking to destroy their unconventional family...?
1. A Moonless Night (Chapter 1)

On moonless nights her love came to her.

The children all knew the pattern of things: once a month the fire was extinguished promptly at sundown. No candles were permitted on those evenings, no sitting up late by the hearth, telling stories and squabbling, nor laying awake in their beds and exchanging whispers and giggles all the night long. Everyone was to be quiet.

As the sun approached the horizon Mother would make her rounds, stopping by each of the beds in that little bedroom, the current baby bound to her breast in a sling and her eyes shining with an undefinable light. She would stop at each bed with its three, or perhaps only two, children and stoop to share an intimate farewell with each of them. Then she would move to the next bed. Eight individual caresses, eight personalized goodnights, Then, if it was warm, she would cross to the big window that faced West and fling open the shutters, revealing the purple and orange streaked sky. This done Mother settled heavily in the rocker, perhaps putting the baby to her breast if it became fussy, and began telling her story.

On these nights it was always the same tale and on these nights it was always ended just before the last tip of the sun disappeared behind the distant blue hills. She stood then and crossed to the door with all her quiet dignity. But before she left she would turn and survey each of them in turn and say, "Go to sleep now, my littlest loves, and do not rise nor speak until the light peeks through the cracks in the eastern window." Then she was gone and with her the last of the sun, melting away behind the horizon.

 ** _xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_**

The baby took a while to settle down, as babies do, but Psyche did not mind. This infant, unlike her brothers, was a happy little thing most of the time and not difficult to please. So Psyche sat on the edge of her bed and soothed her youngest daughter in the perfect, complete stillness of this darkest of nights. Eventually the baby slept and Psyche left her on the bed and began pacing up and down her bedroom, keeping one hand on the wall to guide her way in the darkness. Up, down. Up, down. Soon now.

It was too long, it was always too long. These first moments alone, with her children asleep, with the house swathed in darkness, a cold and dreadful fear always gripped her: the fear of abandonment. Perhaps this time was different. Perhaps he did not care. Perhaps the money would dry up and one by one her children would wither away and die before her eyes.  
But then… was it the wind? No. There was the latch on the door clicking. There were the booted footsteps approaching and the ever-so-slight rustling from the children's bedroom, reminding her that the older children were awake and listening. Now the creak of the hall door, now his breathing to accompany his steps. Seized with a sudden boldness she lunged for the doorknob and flung open the bedroom door. Instantly she was acutely aware of his location for his presence had ever transcended darkness.

He raised a hand and she raised hers and their fingers intertwined, locked, and formed an unbreakable link by which she drew him into the bedroom. He closed the door.  
"You are well?"

He asked that every time. They were the first words he had ever spoken to her. And always she answered the same.  
"I am well enough to do what is necessary."

She felt, rather than saw, him smile. "So must we all be, my love."

Psyche leaned into him, her every care seeming to melt away into his solid, unmovable form. "Oh, husband… I miss you each time. But this especially."

"Why is that?"

"The rumors… rumors they will begin cutting down houses like ours. Cutting down houses where the children seem to come from nowhere and the bread is bought each day but there is no discernable income. They talk of destroying us."

He pulled away from her and sat wearily on the bed, keeping one hand entwined with hers so that they would not lose one another.

"I know. They fear what they do not understand."

"But what am I to do?" A tremor entered her voice, one he rarely heard. His wife was a strong, hardened woman. Sleepless nights, endless pregnancies, illness, colicy infants, miscarriages, insubordinate sons: none of these could faze her any longer. She met all with her head held high, handled them without a man by her side to guide her through, and scarcely seemed affected. But this… she was truly afraid. As she should be. Sometimes he wished his wife was not quite so perceptive.

"I would not darken what little time we have together with these matters. I will wake you early in the morning and tell you what must be done if the worst comes to worst. Until then let us enjoy one another's company. Now, where is the baby?"

 _ **Author's Note:**_

 _ **Ayyyy. I wrote this the other day and then I realized it was a spin on Psyche and Cupid's story. Which is epic and I love that myth so I figured I'd throw it up and see what response I got. Let me know what you think and I might continue! Otherwise it's a good one-shot, I think.**_

 _ **Have a lovely day, everyone! Lots of love,**_

 _ **Katerina13**_


	2. A Monster (Chapter 2)

" _The virgin is destined to be the bride of no mortal lover. Her future husband awaits her on the top of the mountain. He is a monster whom neither gods nor men can resist."_

 _\- The Oracle of Apollo_

* * *

When Psyche was sixteen the wings of the wind delivered her to a palace, nestled deep in a secluded valley. It was perhaps the most beautiful structure on the face of the earth, excluding Mount Olympus and even she, girl as she was, knew that no mortal hands could have crafted it.

Milky white marble walls rose upward, twisting into turrets and into towers, in sharp contrast with the lapiz-colored sky. Sprawling golden roofs gave way to open gardens, full of winding paths and merry brooks. Inside were a thousand luxuries and a thousand servants, each with the sole purpose of satisfying Psyche's every whim.

But the real splendor lay in the scenery, for this citadel was situated beside a wide and deep river. A quaint bridge spanned this river, and beyond that lay verdant green meadows and softly rolling foothills, and beyond _that_ were trees that melted into thick forest and flowed up into impassible mountains. The mountains made a wide, impregnable ring that almost, Psyche felt, gave the impression of being nestled in the hand of a God.

All this was well and good but Psyche prefered the evenings when all this splendor faded away, swallowed by the stillness of the night, and she could be with her husband.

If you really pay attention you can learn a lot in the darkness. The breaths people take- rapid and sharp, breezy and whistling, peaceful and even, labored with the stench of death- each tells of a subtly different story. And the patterns of their voice, the tension in the limbs, the particular scent a person carries on them always, the almost imperceptible tautness of a tendon or muscle, the feel of their skin which bears in its every groove the story of their life: in the dark each is magnified a hundredfold and you can learn the soul of a person easily, without ever seeing their face.  
At first this was hard for Psyche. How can you know someone you have never seen? How can you trust someone when, brushing by them on the street, you would not even know them from a stranger? How can you love a man who gives you everything but himself?

" _He is a monster whom neither gods nor men can resist."_

Sometimes, in those early days of her marriage when they still dwelt in the palace, she would sit among the sunlit flowers of her garden or soak in their monolithic tub and she would doubt. Visions of sun-bleached bones and damp, ravenous, caverns full of the feral creatures of the night would swirl around in her consciousness, gathering themselves together like a storm and breaking against her mind with a terrible ferocity. Insistent. Pounding. She ignored them.

" _My husband is gentleness incarnate."_ she would murmur to herself, " _He is not a monster of the night, he is not a serpent, he is not a demon. No, he is like a man. I know this because I have heard his heart pumping beneath my ear, tousled the softness of his boyish curls, felt the real, human warmth of his skin and known the ringing joy of his laugh."_

It was true. Indeed, every day of her girlhood she had seen her father's face, yet she knew more about the inner lives of the sparrows. She had never seen her husband's face: he was an endless torrent of love and light and warmed her very soul.

So when he told her, "Psyche, you must trust me." she responded, "I would follow you to the ends of the earth."

* * *

The ends of the earth became mandatory when Psyche's third child turned one.

On that evening she did not drink his wine, nor oil her hair, nor let her husband play with the many rings on her fingers. Instead she sat upright in her chair, hands folded in her lap, and said in a direct voice, "A palace is no place to raise children."

"What can you mean?" Cupid was already exasperated. "If it wasn't perfect it wouldn't exist. Every brick is exactly where it should be, every tree was calculated carefully before it was planted."

"And where are my sons supposed to learn swordplay?"

She felt his shrug, "I could give them wooden swords to play with- or send them away when they're old enough to learn in earnest."

"I won't send them away. I shouldn't have to: I am not a Spartan wife. And what if they don't want to learn swordplay? What about a trade so they can have a future? What if we only have more sons and my daughter never has another little girl to play with? I can't teach her everything, she should have other women around her to give her the attention I cannot."

"Enough. What would you have me do?"

She sat up straighter, "I want to move."

"Move?" There was wonderment in his voice, "Come, Psyche, this is nonsense. Aren't you happy here?"

Psyche shifted, showing her first signs of discomfort, "I want my children to know people."

"They know you and their nurses."

"That's not enough."

Ten heartbeats. Again: "What would you have me do?"

"Let us dwell in a human village, husband."

This hung in the air between them like a note that refuses to die, long after the musician's fingers have left the string.

"No."

"Why?"

"You cannot comprehend the consequences of what you ask of me."

"Then help me comprehend. What will happen? What can be so bad? All I want is to be apart of a festival again, to see my sons learn gymnastics and my daughter pick up basket weaving, which I can never teach her. A little company. A little human contact. Why does it have to be so hard?"

Exhaustion entered his breathing, a note of frustration into his footsteps as he paced up and down before her in the dark. "My dearest, you want to leave all this luxury, take my children away from the safety of this valley for… what? To mingle with common mortals? It is infeasible, there would be no safety in that."

She crossed the space between them and found his hand, "You couldn't protect us, I know. Or not as you do now. I suspect the eyes of the immortals would be upon us, though what that means I cannot guess. But you could send money, supply us with a few well chosen servants, furnish us in a little house on the outskirts of a secluded village… Surely I am plain enough now, after three children, that I would not attract unwarranted attention."

"You have never been plain and never will be." he murmured. "And you still do not understand."

Her torrent of words dried up then and she said nothing this time.

After a lengthy silence her husband breathed deeply and said, "I will do what you ask, if it is truly your will. But it cannot be as it is here. There will be more eyes, more light, less buffer between you and the world. I could not come every night, only when it is very dark, when the sky is moonless, and there is no chance of my face being seen. You would be with me once a month. If you can accept that then I will begin making arrangements."

She had expected something like this but Psyche's breath still came out in a half strangled sob. She sat hard, head in hands, and tried to let this sink in.

"Come, Psyche." he took her hand, drawing her up to stand beside him. "Let's set this aside for now. You can tell me what path you will tread in a week's time. Until then we can be happy. Tell me, again, what Lydia said this morning."

So they set it aside for a time.

But seven days later when he entered their bedchamber he immediately sensed a tension and a tightness. And she said to him, from her place on the bed, "Let's look in the north, near Macedon. I always loved the mountains, you know."

And he replied to her, "I know," and tried to seem to collected and nonchalant. But his breathing came rapid and sharp, and his voice betrayed a tremor, and later his tendons were taut and his skin was cool, and Psyche knew, without ever seeing his face, that her husband was breaking his own heart to give her happiness. " _He loves me,"_ she murmured to herself. " _He is_ _Love itself, for all he conceals himself, and I am the luckiest woman alive."_


End file.
